in a different direction. the pictures were discovered by the school administration confiscating one of the male's cellphones. what then gave them the right to go poking around at the data on the phone? if the student was using a phone during class time, i can understand taking it away. but i don't see how that allows an invasion of privacy? what if we were talking about a laptop instead of a cellphone. does the school have the right to go through all that data as well? access to bank information (that some 16-17 year old's could have) going through old emails, etc. with today's cell phone capabilities, in many ways there isn't a difference between what you store on your laptop and your phone.

yes, it is horrible that you'll have to spend money on your friend due to his procrastination. the important part is understanding that it's that procrastination that's at fault, not the government. I'm not a huge fan of the performance of most government aid programs, but seriously, i have next to no sympathy for anyone that's getting 'left out' here. we're looking at 1 month left until the changeover is coming out, and they're 'starting' to run out of money. this program has been going on all last year at least, and the commercials on this television that your friend is so dependant of have been common since that time, progressively more so as we got closer. When you wait until dinner's wrapping up to get yourself a plate, don't come complaining when all that's left is scraps, or that they're cold.

to your first point. why would there be a 'device'.. they can wiretap through the service provider. hence why the bill providing immunity to the telco's for complying with illegal tap requests was passed.

when for awhile there, every other week we'd hear about another 'secret operation' that was conducted without anyone notification or approval.. it becomes difficult to assume the best of a particular situation. However, it really is likely that there are no, and likely have never been any US citizens there- it would be far simpler to strip the citizenship of an individual beforehand, far less red tape that way. there's been so many changes in homeland security law lately that i'm not sure if it's currently the case, but at least at some point if there was reasonable suspicion of terrorist activities, one's US citizenship could be suspended/revoked. of course, we haven't heard any issues of that happening either. maybe we'd be more forgiving or optimistic if we heard about any of these issues through a method other than someone slipping up and saying something they weren't supposed to.

I'll agree that some of the people here are building up XP's flaws and toning down Linux's drawbacks, but i think you're doing much the same in the reverse. in a corporate environment, with a nice speedy internet connection, and prebuilt images, 20-30 minutes to get a windows desktop going is feasible. in this situation, you're lucky to have a poor 'broadband' connection. any updates needed will take a -long- time. the fact that sp3 is fairly new makes including it in an image cut down on your update times now. but what about 6 months ago, what about 6 months from now? i've installed many a windowsXP box as well, and if you aren't just tossing an image on the drive, i don't know that i've ever seen just the install take less than 30 minutes. much less the format and update/configuration. now, if you have a customized, up to date xp image that includes all the patches/service packs, and configuration changes that you commonly make (understandable for someone that does reinstalls regularly) 30 minutes to 1.5 hours is about right. but, how much time are would you spend per month keeping that disc up to date? shouldn't that factor into the time it takes you to do your installs? there are exceptions to every rule, obviously. however, i'd say with some certainty, if you are reasonably familiar with both OS's (ie, you're equally comfortable setting up a linux pc and a windows pc) it's much simpler to set up a linux system for use as a generic email/internet workstation. if there's specific hardware issues, or a specific software requirement, that changes things. but the same can be said of windows versions. (there may only be a vista driver, or only an XP driver if you're installing vista- an app may only run in a certain version of windows and compatibility mode might not cut it- just as wine might not cut it in certain situations)

it's not just an issue with 'upselling'. though certainly the company hopes to keep these people as customers, there's nothing dirty or underhanded about that- quite the opposite, i wish -more- companies put forth effort to reduce customer churn. TR is an MMO, the people who play this game really should understand that the majority of mmo's don't succeed long term, though i will admit TR went a bit quicker than most. generally, when this happens, you end up stuck. do not pass go, do not collect $200. Here, NCSoft is at least offering -something- it's a realization that it's a bad situation, but a company can't continue to operate an operation that isn't making, nor shows any signs of turning a profit. it's a "we're sorry we can't keep the game you want to play running, but here, have some time to get to know all our other games, and decide if there's something here you'd like to try before you leave." the attitude that offering access to their entire online collection for 3 months, plus beta access an a month free of the new game they're producing is insulting.. is just well, insulting. assuming a user took up all that offer, and spent 3 months with CoH and L2, that right there is more than double to cost of the TR game purchase, and while it wasn't completely clear with L2, i did note that the digital DL was included with CoH, so there wouldn't even be a purchase required. the idea of offering up the server software as a free item isn't highly likely. TR's engine has some unique features that would likely do well in another game, therefore, the program will likely stay in the hands of the creators to help prevent issues with any of those future products. really, just lighten up.